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Gordon	21/08/2009 12:44:47
9 forum posts	I have been following the series in MEW "First Steps in £D Design" in the above magazine. As it is a free download, it looks promising. One thing I can't fathom out is if it is possible to produce a 2D Engineering drawing that we are all used to, or is the program only for 3D rendering? Maybe Linton Wedlock can answer this if he is reading it? I have been evaluating the free trial of Alibre's product "Alibre Design Xpress" and find it very easy to use, its normall priced at $999, now available for $99, seems a good deal to me, they are selling it off cheap as they are about to bring out a newer version (V12, this is V11.2). What are other readers opinions? Than ks a lot Gordon
John Stevenson	21/08/2009 13:35:16
5068 forum posts 3 photos	Gordon, I couldn't see a way to get true 2D engineering drawings from this, I may be wrong but I couldn't find an easy way. There are quite a few of these 3D rending packages out there, mainly related to producing games renderings and animations but not aimed at 2D precision work. The Alibre offering is very good, $99 gets you version 11.2 Standard package, you also get the option to buy support which 'may' allow you the upgrade to v12 when it comes out at a discount, I don't know. I have bought the $99 version and it does do what they say, You can draw in it just as 2D or do the 3D model and the 2D drawings are done automatically, update the model and the drawings update. All these packages have a steep learning curve but Alibre do help with free tutorials both inside the program and web based. They also have a well supported user forum which is also very helpful. The free Alibre Design Xpress is good but for the extra it's well worth upgrading. Alibre allow you to use this on 3 computers with no strings attached. One think to watch though with these very powerful 3D packages is that it's very easy to design shapes that can't be machined either easily or even at all John S.
Circlip	21/08/2009 15:11:39
1723 forum posts	Although taught A-cad albeit quite a few years ago, Have downloaded Alibre and had a thrash about drawing simple things(Yea I know) and came to the conclusion that the "Spray Bar" type turning that took about an hour to draw with Alibre, would have taken about ten seconds using Crap - O - Cad (Blank sheet and pencil). If you're going to do a lot of drawing, and have the time to devote to the "Exotic" type packages, then they are fine, but I wonder how many think that having a bells and whistles drawing package makes them a "Designer" (OR Draughtsperson for that matter). Bit like DRO's make better mosheenists. Regards Ian.
John Ladlow	21/08/2009 16:45:51
17 forum posts	I have used Alibre for a few months now and find it very easy to use compared with others. As Ian says, it won't turn you into an instant designer but it does allow things to be fitted together and all the different parts checked as an assembly. I have to say that if Alibre models had been used, the Northumbrian situation may not have arisen because to change the 2D drawing, you change the model, so any problems are immediatley apparent. I think some people don't like the discipline that such programs impose, no more dodgy changes to drawings! I also agree that if you just want a quick drawing of one part it is over the top, but if you design engineering models, it is very good. John
John Stevenson	21/08/2009 17:16:16
5068 forum posts 3 photos	Little known fact: CAD is a religion. It's on a par with politics, religion and women, you never discuss or criticise them in public. It's no good suggesting to someone who has 10 years of using a program and 15,174 legacy drawing to change to this because "I like it " Not going to happen. Also different people have different uses for CAD some want perfect scale drawing with every detail perfect, all the hexagons on the nuts lie east to west etc. Some are happy with a shape to follow in the workshop. Often some of mine don't even resemble the part but instead show the path a tool has to follow on the CNC. People draw differently, the older and more experience of manual drawing the harder it is to take CAD aboard. One year I stood in for our local college lecturer who had to have an operation. No problem he says, all the course work is done I teach the same thing over and over each year. So Day One approaches and all this people of various sizes, sexes and colours enter. Now CAD drawing to follow the books is all taken from a co-ordinate point 0,0 which is usually bottom left so all the dimensions are positive. All dimensions and entities [ big word but it just means all lines, circles, tea stains and anything else on the drawing ] are then positive. This is called "Drawing in Absolute mode" and is the standard way. Into second week and all the young sprogs are well away, no problems. The older guys have this glazed look. That night after the lesson in the local boozer I asked 3 or 4 of them what experience they had of CAD and drawing in general, Answer, as I expected was no CAD experience and a bit of drawing board work. Now think about how you draw on a drawing board, you stuff a horizontal line on and a vertical line and then all your construction lines are set out from these two lines. In CAD this is called Offsetting but it also differentiates between they two types. First type from 0,0 point is called absolute, second type where each line is offset from it's mate is called Relative. Standard practice is to teach in Absolute but the Jerry Hat Trick guys only know Relative. So week 3 and I sort out who's expecting to work like manual drawing and who's happy with Absolute and split them up. After that it went great, one guy even came up and said it was his 3rd year at the same course and now he was learning and could understand how to do it. When Paul came back from his operation he wasn't best pleased and insisted every one learn BS standard Absolute. Bottom line is though that more people were happy with the way they were working than before and they were getting more done. So if 2D crap-O-cad suits by all means use it, at the end of the day it's all down to personal choice. John S.
Circlip	21/08/2009 19:40:33
1723 forum posts	No, I ain't going to insult the great God CAD, as Sir John rightly says, the worst people to teach are the ole Bu*rs who had years of conventional drawing, and that was a statement from my CAD teacher who was also called Paul?? Didn't stop me from speeding up and locking onto the advantages and being able to use it more effectively than the rest of the class (Smart Ae) BUT, unless you're using it on a daily basis, it's an expensive toy to most. Regards Ian.
wahiba	25/08/2009 17:30:52
10 forum posts	I taught CAD for a while and do not remember working from absolute zero. CNC yese but not CAD. Mind you it was early days and no one had written any 'rules' then. I tend to draw in CAD as I would with pencil and paper. Initial lines followed by editing at corners. I also tend to lay out the three views on a base layer. Use all the features, especially copying repeated parts. Life is so much easier with CAD for those situations. I just use DeltaCAD. Just thebasics, not to many bells and whistles. Off to try this TurboCAD 12 freebie but doubt I will be converted back to complex CAD.
Ian Abbott	26/08/2009 17:55:57
279 forum posts 21 photos	Odd, I found that it was the opposite. Having had experience over 30 years with the old draughting machine made the change to CAD pretty easy. Mind you this was right at the beginning when CAD programs were quite basic. Thinking about the complexity of the Vectorworks that I'm using now, It would be an incredibly steep learning curve. Personally, CAD makes drawing possible for me now, as due to nerve damage, I don't have good fine motor skills and my pencil drawings are messy to say the least. On zeroing, Vectorworks will set the origin at any point on the board; select origin> mouse click, and it can be moved at any time. I usually set the origin to the corner of the first view, then move to either the base line or object centre, which ever is most convenient for measuring off. Can't remember what AutoCad does, it's been a long time since I've used it. To me, the most wonderful thing about CAD is no redrawing. The times that I've spent hours tracing a design through to a new sheet, just because of one tiny little change.......... Ian
Trevorh	28/08/2009 13:02:35
316 forum posts 89 photos	Just to put my pennyworth in only 1 cad its autocad mechanical, can do anything and everything Started using it with R13 in dos and never looked back - now using 2009 and I have to say I haven't found anything yet that can't be done Luckily it can import all of the more basic file extensions and convert into DXF It is a hard program to learn from scratch but well worth the effort Edited By kerbtrawler on 28/08/2009 13:03:14
Bowber	18/11/2009 23:46:05
169 forum posts 24 photos	We were initialy taught the absolute method in Acad R12 at collage but then it moved onto relative etc. I now don't bother with any of it and just start with a box or round or just 2 construction lines and start offsetting, it's how I'll mark out the part anyway. I use CMS Intellicad now, kind of a Acad clone and I use it for all sorts of things, I have really bad memory so I can never remember my trig formulas, no problem I just draw it and measure the angle (batteries usually flat in the calculator as well) I've also been looking at Truespace and quite honestly after 10 mins with it gave up, Alibre xpress is far better for 3d design of parts but I hear the 2D drawing export hase been crippled, pity. Steve
D.C.Clark	19/11/2009 14:21:24
16 forum posts 8 photos	I learned pencil drafting 40 years ago. In 30 years with NASA, used pretty much every CAD and CAM system ever made. Also taught them in community college and apprenticeship programs. My all time favorite for intuitive ease of use was AutoDesk Inventor. Couldn't afford it in retirement so switched to Alibre Expert. Like it almost as well. Now I'm at home, clock making and model engineering. I make animated CAD models of my designs only because I'm weird enough to think that's almost as much fun as making things. But I haven't made anything in retirement that I couldn't have designed and drafted just as well, and almost as quickly, with a pencil. (ain't rocket science) I still have my drafting equipment, (Hell, I still have my slide rule.) and there are times when I just don't feel like messing with a damn computer. Haven't done any CAM at home, and don't expect to. Me and CAM go back to when we were hand punching programs on paper tape. For simple 2-1/2 D parts, I can type code faster than I can post process a CAD model. My favorite answer to almost every question is, "all of the above". So, my advice is to maybe step back a generation (or 2). Go for low-tech, unless you want the hi-tech for it's own sake. In that case, get Alibre and have fun with it. What ever you do, have fun with it. Or why do it at all? David Clark in Southern Maryland, USA
Peter G. Shaw	19/11/2009 15:27:04
1531 forum posts 44 photos	My only experience of pencil drafting was in the craftwork classes at school a good ½ century ago. Then, about 15 years ago, I needed to draw some plans for the local council so settled on Draft Choice for Windows. This was an easy to use and understand shareware 2D CAD program which happened to have an excellent (for me) manual which gave an excellent introduction to CAD. Unfortunately, with improving computers, the program became more and more unreliable, hence was scrapped. Tried TurboCad, and found it very difficult to use after DraftChoice, so eventually plumped for DesignCad. This program is a 2D/3D program and for me, was very similar to Draft Choice hence the changeover was quite easy. Design Cad, if you can find it (not easy because it is now owned by IMSI who also own TurboCad which IMSI seem to push in preference to DesignCad) can be found at about £25 for a reasonably up to date version. Design Cad encourages drawing at full size, with scaling to fit the paper being applied at printing time. Whilst Absolute drawing is easily available, I find it much easier to use a combination of Relative drawing coupled with snapping (a method of, eg, selecting the end of an existing line to start another line). One thing I like about CAD is the ability to experiment, or design if you like, on the screen without having to waste reams of paper, and whilst for something simple such as a rectangular bar with a slot in it, CAD is well OTT, designing something more complex is a lot easier with CAD. So, to return to the original posting, I doubt very much that I will be using trueSpace (and anyway, it's now been discontinued by Microsoft who own it) especially as I already have a CAD program with animated 3D facilities - if indeed I do need that facility. Regards, Peter G. Shaw
John Hinkley	19/11/2009 16:50:22
1545 forum posts 484 photos	For what it's worth, I use the OpenOffice drawing package. It's a free, open-source program and does what I want and very well too. Dimension lines that automatically re-size themselves, as well. It doesn't have all the "bells and whistles" that a dedicated CAD package does - but then again it does exactly what it says on the tin - it draws a picture! Isn't that what you want? Just about everything is customisable. I've taken a little time to make up templates for A4 and A3 paper sizes, with grid lines at 1cm spacing, rulers side and top and specified text styles and dimension units and positions. I could go on, but you'll lose the will to live! As a bonus, the OpenOffice suite also comes with a presentation package (like Powerpoint), spreadsheet (Excel), database (Access), formula creation and word procesor (Word). All are Microsoft compatible and will even export directly into pdf format. What more could you ask? Regards, John
Circlip	19/11/2009 17:49:58
1723 forum posts	Just as a heads up for Alibre users, it would appear that the 11.2 cheaper package is NOT compatible with Windoze 7 so it may be advantageous to keep a second computer containing XP or (UGH) Vista. Regards Ian.
John Haine	19/11/2009 18:18:30
5563 forum posts 322 photos	Has anyone had any joy learning Turbocad? I bought a discounted version at MEX a year ago - I count myself as a skilled user of most PC applications including many drawing packages over many years, but it has me TOTALLY BAFFLED! Anyone know of a simple tutorial for it maybe? John.
Peter Gain	19/11/2009 19:17:59
103 forum posts	Hi John, I purchased TurboCAD v 8 a few years ago & like you was baffled. Try Google "DeltaCAD". This will give all the info that you require. The basic package is about $40, they accept all usual cards & will post the disc to the UK. You can download a trial run at no cost. I found DeltaCAD easy to learn because it is logical & is not primarily designed to show how very clever is the software man. Once you get the hang of DeltaCAD, TurboCAD comes easier, but unless you need 3D, why bother? Peter Gain.
Circlip	19/11/2009 19:33:05
1723 forum posts	"Doublecad" is a freebie by the makers of Turbocad, it's supposed to be a challenger to A/Cad Lite. After three weeks of head banging it's getting through, 18 years since I last played with Full A/Cad but there are similarities. Onward and Upward. Regards Ian
David Clark 1	19/11/2009 19:38:21
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles	Hi There Did you get a manual with your TurboCAD? I found TurboCad very hard after using Autocad Lite. I sat down for a couple of evenings and can now do a reasonable drawing with it. Autocad Lite won't run on Vista so I had no choice. Don't think it ran properly on XP either. The first thing to do is set up some layers. I used 1 construction 2 main objects 3 dimensions 4 hatching 5 hidden lines Other layers will be required eventually. Some things I find annoying but I am slowly getting used to it. It is a good package but you will not learn something like this in just a few hours. You need to use it regularly. regards David
Peter G. Shaw	21/11/2009 19:55:32
1531 forum posts 44 photos	This appears to be the thing with TurboCad in that it IS very difficult to get started with, indeed, certainly a few years ago they were giving V.4 away free so that people could learn on it before committing themselves. Later, I noticed that they have a so-called Learning Edition which seemed to be a cut-down version of V4 (which itself was pretty dreadful!).. The idea of setting up Layers first is always a good idea. I use: 1 Outline 2 Centre Lines 3 Hidden Details 4 Dimensions 5 Drawing Text 6 Title Box 7 - 10 Construct 1 - 4 I often find that I need to use some temporary lines in order to draw other lines. These lines are not required in the final drawing and can be deleted when no longer required. This is the purpose of the Construct lines. Any complex program will require a lot of study and learning (trial & error?) before one can get the best out of it, but it is my belief that some programs are easier than others in this respect. For me TurboCad fails completely in this respect, whereas Design Cad does not. FWIW, the most complex drawing I have done with Design Cad was to draw a gear wheel complete with involute sides to the gear teeth (albeit with a slight modification as per Ivan Law's book Gears & Gearcutting). I have also set up an animation showing how a spur gear meshed with an internal gear. Regards, Peter G. Shaw
Bowber	25/11/2009 16:31:04
169 forum posts 24 photos	Alibre 11.2 will run on windows 7, you just have to alter the program settings to run in compatibility mode for Vista. I've been reading the latest issue and I have to say that I'm very impressed with the results Linton is getting with Truespace, I still wouldn't use it but it shows what a bit of ingenious thinking can do. I do tend to fiddle quite a bit with Alibre (the std £99 one) and I like being able to model a part and produce an A4 dwg that will alter as the model is modified. I tend to get it wrong first time as I forget some important hole or part etc. Also the stl files are good for 3D milling on a CNC. Steve

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